'Mary Poppins' - The Long Road to Broadway

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In 1965 Dick Van Dyke sparked the first thought of a 'Mary Poppins' stage musical during a radio interview. Nearly twenty years later Michael Eisner commissioned it's author P.L. Travers to create a sequel to the beloved story. The 1994 success of Disney's new Theatrical division's 'Beauty and The Beast' helped revive the 'Poppins' musical idea and ushered it into development. This morning it was announced that the production earned 7 Tony Award nominations.

Read more on this fascinating story at:
In Tune with Mary Poppins
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/108079.html

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in related news:

New Sherman Brothers Musical MerryGoRound Aims for Broadway


By Andrew Gans
Playbill.com
16 May 2007

Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, the composing team currently represented on Broadway by the Tony-nominated musical Mary Poppins, have penned a new musical entitled MerryGoRound.

Producer Jack Stein has acquired the rights to the new musical, which features a score by the Sherman brothers and a book by Paul Butler and Fred Fox, Jr. The musical was conceived by Andy Belling, who will also direct.

MerryGoRound, according to press notes, is "the story of a young man who, believing his existence is meaningless attempts to end his life, only to be saved by his estranged father who persuades him to travel back in time on a magical merry-go-round to rediscover who he really is and how precious and wonderful life is."

The musical is scheduled for an out-of-town tryout this fall with an eye toward an early 2008 Broadway opening.

Bob Mackie will design the costumes for MerryGoRound, which will boast state-of-the-art video screen projection and 3-D CGI animation.

Production design will be created by Redesign, Inc. (Peter Morse and Perry "Butch" Allen). The show will also feature magical illusions created by John Gaughan. Manny Kladitis' Niko Companies, LTD will general manage.

In a statement Richard Sherman said, "Bob and I learned from the master — Walt Disney. He once told us, early on in our career, 'Don't insult the kid — don't write down to the kid. And don't write just for the adult.' So we write for grandpa and the four-year-old and everyone in between — and all see it on a different level."

The Sherman Brothers penned the scores for such movie musicals as "Mary Poppins," "101 Dalmatians," "Winnie the Pooh," "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocats" and "Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang." Their theatre credits include Over Here, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins. They also wrote the most-played song on Earth, "It's a Small World (After All)," the tune that plays on a continual, multilingual loop every few minutes at Disney theme parks across the world.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/108119.html

[Dustysage]

Here's a great review of the show from one of our MiceChatters:
http://micechat.com/forums/entertainment-lounge/65404-mary-poppins-broadway-review.html